Florida Panthers: What's A Third-round Pick Worth?

June 27, 2009|Posted by Ethan J. Skolnick on June 27, 2009 05:55 PM

In the wrong hands, not much.

We'll see what becomes of Josh Birkholz, the selection that Randy Sexton received in addition to veteran Jordan Leopold for Jay Bouwmeester. This was Sexton's first shot to run a Panthers draft, and he did well to get something for a guy who was planning to leave for months (if not years).

The Panthers' third-round history is mixed. The list below shows that you can find a quality NHL player there (see bold), and you can find a lot of guys no one will hear from again.

These are the third-round picks from 1993 to 2007:

Chris Armstrong

Steve Washburn

Mikael Tjallden

Mike O'Grady

Chris Allen

Oleg Kvasha

Vratislav Cech

Nick Smith

Joe DiPenta

Lance Ward

Niklas Hagman

Jean-Francois Laniel

Rob Fried

Sean O'Connor

Tomas Malec

Grant McNeill

Gregory Campbell

Dan Collins

Brady Calla

Evgeni Dadonov

xxxxxx

Bouwmeester will likely sign with Calgary, not just because it's in his native Alberta, because it gives him the best of both worlds: he gets to play in an area that cares about hockey without the intense media pressure of playing in Montreal, Toronto, New York, Philadelphia or Detroit. He is unquestionably a quality player, and that's why I pushed for the Panthers to retain him through the trade deadline to try to make the playoffs. But he disappointed down the stretch. He's not a leader. And he doesn't have the personality to be the face of the franchise, which is something that the Panthers need. (David Booth is much better-suited, and he should be extended, because he embodies what this franchise should be about.)

So the question now is what the Panthers do with money they would have allocated towards him, with the ownership situation in flux and no full-time general manager on hand. But if they don't acquire another forward who is capable of playing on the first two lines, there's no reason to believe that the Panthers are a playoff team next season, even if Michael Frolik improves as expected.